The massacre of five police officers in Dallas has left us reeling — overcome with grief, sucker-punched to the ground by sorrow, wrenched by pain that is all too real. When tragedy occurs, be it collective or personal, just going to the kitchen for coffee can be an accomplishment.

How, we wonder — if indeed we can even think ahead — can life go on at all? And the idea of growing from the experience is likely way off the are-you-kidding? charts.

Butpost-traumatic growth — a phrase coined in 1996 to describe positive changes occurring as a result of a challenging life event — can and often does happen. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even next year.

"Recovery from trauma is highly individualized," says Ann Marie Warren. The clinical psychologist with the Level One Trauma Center at Baylor University Medical Center Dallas has led research on the positive and negative impact of trauma on individuals and their family members, as well as on physicians and other health-care workers. (She and her husband, Dr. Alan Jones, medical director of orthopedic surgery at Baylor, were also featured in an earlier story this week in The Dallas Morning News.)

Ann Marie Warren, a clinical psychologist at Baylor University Medical, has done research on post-traumatic growth. She and her husband, Dr. Alan Jones, medical director of orthopedic surgery at the hospital, were featured in a Dallas Morning News story last week.

(Seema Yasmin/The Dallas Morning News)

"Research suggests that when you look at people over time after a traumatic injury or event, most people are resilient, and that's a good thing," she says. "We're all different. Some people get highly traumatized and stay highly traumatized. Some seem fine, and six months later they develop PTSD. Some get a little distressed, level out, move on.

"We want to find ways to help people cope through difficult stuff, but identify how can we help them grow emotionally and become stronger."

The growth may be personal: strengthening interpersonal relationships, Warren says; maybe looking at work in a different way. Or millions of total strangers can feel its impact, as when Candy Lightner founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving after her 13-year-old daughter was killed by a drunken driver.

People who have undergone traumatic events "often change their priorities," says Debra Iversen, director of behavioral health for Texas Health Resources' Seay Behavioral Health Center in Plano. "They form relationships with others and have an increase in their empathy. They're able to reach out more."

Caveat time, here: Experts acknowledge and stress that losing a loved one, losing a limb, losing life as you've known it is gut-wrenching and agonizing. People may grow from the experience, but growth doesn't remove the memory or alter the reality of what happened.

As Beth Soltero, whose daughter Wendy was killed in Los Angeles almost 16 years ago, says of the Dallas police officers: "Yes, they died a hero, but you'd rather have them at the dinner table."

"We're not talking about recovering or healing or everything going away," Iversen says. "It doesn't go away. The suffering remains. But there is a way to find meaning in it."

Adds Warren: "This is not in any way lessening the impact of a horrendous event happening. But in the event of trauma and tragedy, people can grow and can grow psychologically, which is post-traumatic growth, and we want to support that, and for them not to feel it's meaningless suffering.

"They still say, 'That's not what I would have chosen,' but they can still say that in the bigger picture, they've found some positives come out of the experience."

We are a tough lot, we humans. We feel, we cry, we are overcome and overwhelmed. Yet we keep waking up; we keep walking; we keep weaving forward.

"You can still have psychological distress," Warren says, "and still be resilient."

Beth Soltero (right) and her daughter Karen Soltero hold an old photograph of Karen (left) and Wendy Soltero. Wendy was murdered in Los Angeles in 2000.

(David Woo/Staff Photographer)

The murder of Soltero's daughter Wendy on Oct. 28, 2000, has taken her as well as daughter Karen and husband Gene onto paths they otherwise would never have ventured. To do nothing, "to just sit there," Soltero says, "would be to dishonor Wendy and give more power to the act, to the atrocity, of murder."

She has gone to Washington, D.C., with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, visiting the offices of U.S. congressmen to lobby for responsible gun ownership.But she has felt a deeper response talking to prisoners and parolees through a program with the Texas criminal justice system, she says, stressing to them the ripple effects their crimes have on family members, colleagues and friends.

"You're trying to get them to realize their victims are not just whoever they raped, hit, killed, robbed," says Soltero, who lives in Dallas. "They tend to think that's the only person they hurt."

She recalls one prisoner coming up to her after she spoke, tears streaming down his face. He told her he has three children and said: "I may not get out [of prison] for 28 years, but I'm going to try to be the best father. I'll be thinking about Wendy." And a parolee who asked her, "Does it bother you that her father won't walk her down the aisle and you won't hold her children?"

When she hears such questions, she says, "You know, 'Now they're thinking; now they're thinking.' You have a little hope in your heart they will change their lives."

That doesn't come close to taking away the horror and heartbreak of Wendy's death, of course, But helping direct someone's life onto a more law-abiding path just might keep other families from suffering the kind of loss the Soltero family has suffered.

This is not, Soltero says, "a path I ever expected. I hope I'm a caring person, and I raised the girls to be the same, and my husband is, too. I had to find private ways that I know have helped me. I do something for somebody and tell them afterward, 'I would have helped you randomly, but this is in honor of' — I tell the first name of someone who died accidentally, or was a victim of a crime. 'I just want you to know this is in their memory, and I hope to pass it along.'

"It's just a way to honor someone vs. putting flowers on the grave. We have to pay it forward, and we've got to come together."

What to know:

First, experts say, remember that grief has no timetable. Clinical psychologist Ann Marie Warren has met people at the time of trauma who tell her, "I feel something good will come of this." But others may not experience a sense of growth for a much longer time.

Here are some other thoughts to keep in mind:

Understand the typical reactions to trauma: Increased anxiety, difficulty sleeping, nightmares, hyper-vigilance and avoidance of reminders of the trauma are all normal.

Take care of yourself. "Make sure you're getting enough sleep and exercise, things that sound basic," Warren says. Even for our providers here at the hospital, I'm encouraging them, including myself, to do self-care. If you're not caring for yourself, you can't help anyone else." In direct reference to the July 7 police massacre, she says, try not to "over-saturate yourself in the coverage of this."

Reach out. Give blood, Warren says. Or volunteer. As for when to do so, Pennsylvania grief counselor Deborah S. Derman, author of Colors of Loss & Healing: An Adult Coloring Book for Getting Through the Tough Times, says simply: "as soon as they feel like they're wanting to do something. How quickly that feeling comes will be different for everyone, as each person experiences grief in their own unique way, and on their own timeline."

Be cognizant of changes. There is no time limit for grief, says, Debra Iversen of Seay Behavioral Health Hospital, but if your symptoms increase, or if you simply can't function, seek professional help.

A few warnings. Be careful what you say to victims of something horrific, Iversen says. For instance, don't say, "You need to go out and do something," or "Is there something we can do to cheer you up?"

"People do not want to be cheered up," she says. "They don't want to be told 'time will heal.'"

Similarly, she says, "I would not walk up to someone and say, 'This happened for a reason.' But I might say, 'Over time, you'll learn to make your own private peace.' It's a reassurance, not that it will make sense, but that over time, they will find a private peace."

Start a journal. Research at Southern Methodist University "found that journaling after traumatic events is very powerful," Warren says. "I tell a lot of people to get a notebook and start writing about it. That sounds very simple and can be very effective."

Stay connected. "The No. 1 predictor of who will do best [after a traumatic event] are those who reach out to a natural support system: family, friends, church," Iversen says. "We put all these fancy things in place, but that's the No. 1 predictor of long-term effect. It's all about community."